In the content strategy tool, a topic cluster is an overall grouping of a core topic (pillar page), subtopic, and linked content that helps establish authority for a specific topic. Learn how to create a new topic cluster and attach your supporting content.
Before you get started: you can create new topic clusters automatically based on your existing HubSpot pages and blog posts using the content auditing feature.
Create a new topic cluster and add pillar content
- In your HubSpot Marketing Hub Basic, Professional, or Enterprise account, navigate to Marketing > Planning and Strategy > Content Strategy.
- In the upper right, click Create a topic cluster.
- Click Add core topic in the center of the topic cluster to add your core topic. Once you add a core topic phrase, metrics for how you would rank for this topic in domain authority and monthly searches will automatically be generated.
- Alternatively, you can select a core topic in the Suggested core topics section by clicking the radio button next to a suggested core topic.
- Click Save at the bottom to add the core topic.
- Click Add pillar content under the core topic to attach a pillar page to your core topic. A pillar page should be the authoritative source your related subtopics will link back to.
- Under Select pillar content, click Create a landing page to create a new landing page, Add external URL to link to an external resource, or use the Search for content search bar to search for and select an existing landing page.
- The Most Relevant Content section will automatically display content that is most related to your core topic for you to choose from.
- When you're done, click Save at the bottom.
Add subtopics and supporting content
- Click Add subtopic to add a subtopic to the topic cluster. Once you enter a subtopic phrase, metrics for the average monthly searches for the subtopic and core topic similarity will automatically be generated.
- Alternatively, you can select a subtopic in the Suggested subtopics section by clicking the radio button next to a suggested subtopic.
- To hide suggested subtopics and improve future suggestions, hover over a suggested subtopic and click the Hide dropdown. Select the radio button next to the feedback you'd like to submit, then click Hide suggestion.
- Click Save at the bottom to add the subtopic.
- Lastly, add supporting content to your subtopic. Supporting content is shorter in length than pillar content and helps build authority around your core topic.
Please note: each piece of supporting content can only be attached to one topic or subtopic in the content strategy tool.
- Under Select supporting content, click Create a post to create a new blog post, Add external URL to link to an external resource, or use the Search for content search bar to search for and add a HubSpot blog post, landing page, or website page. The Most Relevant Content section will automatically display content that is most related to your subtopic for you to choose from.
- After selecting your content, click Save.
- If you want to see topic validation data for another country, use the Country dropdown in the upper-left corner. This will update the data to reflect SEO trends for the selected country instead of the default location settings in your account.
